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The coatless orator he sung,

The scarecrow of an hour,

When late the house with laughter rung,

To see their fallen power.

With downcast looks the senseless block head sate,
Revolving in his fear-struck soul

The various turns of chance below;
And now and then a sigh he stole,
To think the dangers of a row.
The fabling lyarist shrunk to see
Despair was in the next degree,
(For that he knew would spoil his fee :)
He struck a lighter note, to move,
(As wine will bid the fancy rove,)
If possible, his soul to love.
Softly sweet, in legend measure,
Soon he sooth'd his soul to pleasure.
Row, he sung, was toil and trouble,
O. P. but an empty bubble;
Never ending, still beginning,

Fighting still, and still destroying;
If the wench be worth thy winning
Think, oh think her worth enjoying.
O. P.'s are not worth the wearing-
Only got by falsehood swearing.
Lovely Dolly sits beside thee,

Take the goods the Gods betide thee.

The rabble rend the roof with loud applause;
Thus love was crown'd, the rowing was the cause,
The boy, unable to conceal his pain,
Gaz'd on the fair,
Then tore his hair,

Stamp'd and rav'd, rav'd and stamp'd,
Rav'd and stamp'd, and rav'd again.
At length, with love or wine oppress'd,
Drunk as a dragon sunk upon her breast;
But now to keep his seat no longer able,
Fell like a German boor beneath the table.
Now strike the fabling lyar again,
A bolder yet, and yet a bolder strain,

Burst

DRYDEN'S ODE TO MUSIC IMITATED. 32L

Burst his bands of sleep asunder,

And rouse him like a rattling peal of thunder.
Hark! hark! the horrid sound-

Has rais'd up his head:
Amaz'd he stares round,

As awak'd from the dead.

Revenge! revenge! the lyarist cries,
See the constables rise,

See the staves that they bear,
Which our bands view with fear,
See the terrors which flash from their eyes;
Behold yon ghastly band,

Each O. P. in his hand;

These are the friends that have nearly been slain,
Friends that never would fail,

Yet unbail'd they remain,

Inglorious in jail.

Give the vengeance due

To the ragged crew:

Behold how they toss their placards on high,
How they point to John Kemble's abodes,
And glittering temple of his household gods.
The rabble applaud with a furious joy,

And three cheers they give to the maid and the boy.
Whilst he seiz'd a flambeau with zeal to destroy,
She led the way, to light him to his prey,

To fire the dome that forms a nation's joy.

FALKLAND.

NOTES. For Clifford won-The following is written on one of the pillars in Westminster Hall:

Dan and his Master in Westminster Hall,

Long waited a client to spy;

When Wienholt appear'd, they set up a bawl,

And loudly, A customer! cry

Charge, Master, charge!

On, Wienholt, on!

Were the glad shouts of starving Dan.

Ste John Bull.

Black-eyed Dolly Bull, the sprawling oratrix of the Pit.

Lyar, Lyarist. I have preferred this spelling as best suited to the character of a certain print, as it also leaves the reader in suspense be-tween a living and an inaniinate instrument,

[blocks in formation]

SIR,

BEING

RAISING A NOISE.

[From the Public Ledger, Nov. 25.]

EING an enemy to noises of every description, I am one of those who have determined to stay away from Covent Garden until a peace shall be established. But my quiet disposition need not prevent my praising the ingenuity of the O. P.'s in inventing new species of noise, or which, at least, were never heard before within the walls of a Theatre. Some, discovering that the human voice, in its most powerful elevation, was not sufficient for their purpose, have called in the aid of trumpets, rattles, and bells. But, Sir, ingenious as all this may seem, I would have them to reflect that the public are soon tired of the best performances, and that, like other managers, they must soon provide them with a greater variety of sounds. As to coughing and sneezing, they appear to me to be many notes too low for their purpose; and other discharges of wind ought to be practised with moderation, because they have a tendency to encourage the sale of articles which cannot at present be procured at the old prices.

Industrions, therefore, as the O. P.'s have been in multiplying the instruments of clamour, I do not by any means think that they have exhausted the subject. They have not, for example, made a sufficient use of those patriotic ladies who accompany them, and who, with very little effort, might be made to squall an octave higher than any trumpet ever invented. I would also recommend to them the use of that excellent instrument the saw. A few of these might be placed with great advantage in the pit, and the operation of sharpening practised with prodigious effect; as this is supposed to be the most irresistible attack that can be made upon the nerves. And truly, Sir, at a time that the eyes of all Europe are upon us, nothing ought to be wanting to convince them that the concerns of a play

house

VERSES ON THE DECEASE OF OLD PRICES. 323 house and a rabble are of more importance in our eyes than the progress of Bonaparte's arms and the subjugation of Europe. I am, Sir, yours,

QUIETUS

ELEGIAC VERSES ON THE DECEASE OF OLD.

PRICES.

[From the British Press, Nov. 27.]

ERE lies O. P. who, while in life,

HE

Kept London town in constant strife,

And made men cry, where they were wont to laugh.

The gods on high, from that abyss,

The pit, heard this vile demon hiss,

And struck him dead!Lo! this his epitaph:

"His horn is blown, his rattle sprung,

His bell, yea, his death-bell is rung,

And in the dust his spirit laid

De mortuis nil nisi bonum,

Is all that may be said upon him

For of the bad, what may be said?
"As spirit, his vile schemes to cheer,
Was Chronicled his sour small-beer,
Who spiritless upon the bier lies low;

Bad were The Times that gave him breath,
And, had he not been Press-'d to death,
He might have wrought a world of woe!
"Upon the stage he 'll strut no more,
His loud rehearsals all are o'er,

The silent hearse all that is left him now;
A coffin now his private box,

(That house that wants nor keys nor locks,)
And Charon's boat his only chance to row.
"To manage Managers he tried,
And all his country's laws defied;
To bow to Bow Street he esteem'd a stain,
He scorn'd the baize and spurn'd control,
But grave is now his pigeon-hole;
May we ne'er look upon his like again!"

HODGE PODGE.

THE OXFORD CHANCELLORSHIP.
[From the Morning Post, Nov. 27.]

WELL may poor Alma Mater weep and moan,
To lose her trusty prop of Portland stone!
Yet what's her present to her threaten'd evil—
The Pope, Lord Grenville, Boney, and the D-l?

Por.

IT

CHEMICAL PHENOMENON.
[From the Morning Chronicle, Nov. 27.]

T has been for some time a matter of surprise to philosophers, that the heterogeneous compound known by the name of the Administration, but which was in fact a neutral salt, in the strictest sense of the term, should not long ago have been decomposed. The weakness of the affinities between its component parts was well known; and we are obliged to Berthollet for the term "complex affinity," by which it is well described.

A volatile substance, called Canning, having a great capacity for caloric, has, as might have been expected, effected the decomposition; deflagration and detonation took place upon exposure at an increased temperature to atmospheric air, on Putney Common; this must have had the effect of the Galvanic battery, as a piece of metal, of a spherical form, supposed to be Mr. Davy's potassium, was projected from a tube containing nitrate of pot-ash, sulphur, and carbon.

Thus was Mr. Perceval's famous compound decomposed; Canning yielded red fluid, of the colour of human blood, highly concentrated sulphuric acid, and an impure alkali of a caustic nature.

Castlereagh gave a considerable quantity of aqueous fluid, and an oxyde of lead, which had of course lost all its metallic splendour. The residuum, consisting of vapours, and of various weak solutions, was not

thought

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